Episode Recap

Piratz Tavern was an oddly pirate themed bar opened by Tracy Rebelo in 2007. Located in Silver Springs, Maryland, Piratz Tavern was filled with swashbuckling employees and patrons. All the employees wore pirate costumes and spoke with cringey pirate lingo.

Unfortunately, Tracy wasn’t quite at good at managing as she was theming, which is why Piratz Tavern was losing massive money when they called in Jon Taffer to help save the bar.

When Jon met Tracy, he criticized the bar’s nearly inedible food and drinks, as well as the staff’s ridiculous costumes.

Then, to help turn things around, Jon called in Josh Capon and Elayne Duke, as well as staff trainer Jessie Barnes.

In addition to the experts, Jon also wanted to rip out the pirate theme and get the staff into regular clothes. With that out of the way, Jon ran his trademark stress test…to very poor results. Patron’s were waiting 30+ minutes for drinks and the whole night was just generally a massive disaster.

As part of the rebranding, Jon renamed Piratz Tavern to Corporate Bar and Grill which, if you think about is, is about as big of a change as he could’ve possible made.

Not surprisingly, Tracy hated the rebranding and wanted nothing to do with it. Which had a lot to do with what happened next…

Piratz Tavern Update - What Happened Next?

A few weeks after Jon made his changes to the bar and changed the name to Corporate Bar and Grill, Tracy closed the bar, redecorated it, and reopened it as Piratz Tavern again.

The staff went out of their way to get rid of all the changes that Jon made. Even going as far as burning some of the decor added by the Bar Rescue team (hilarious!). They even made a more hilarious Piratz Revenge music video that documents some of the burning (and also showcases them calling Jon Taffer a bastard lol).

Piratz Tavern operated under its original pirates branding until 2015, when it closed its doors for good. While Piratz Tavern in Maryland is no longer open, the Rebelos did move down to Melbourne, Florida where they opened Bar Refuge.

Tracy went on record saying that Bar Refuge was named that way because it was their refuge from Bar Rescue.

At the time of this post, Bar Refuge in Florida is still alive and kicking. Bar Refuge has solid Yelp Reviews, with a 4.5-star rating on its 28 reviews. The reviews all seem positive. So it seems that while Piratz Tavern was a failure, the Rebelos do know a thing or two about running a successful bar (at least in Florida).